


The Adventures of Todd the PA

by MCUsic_to_my_ears



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner-centric, Exhaustion, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Original Character(s), Post-Battle, Post-Iron Man 3, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:12:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCUsic_to_my_ears/pseuds/MCUsic_to_my_ears
Summary: After realizing that he couldn’t always mother hen Bruce after Avengers battles, Tony got Bruce a personal assistant to take care of his friend after he Hulked out.Todd just wanted to afford his new apartment.





	

_ “And scene,”  _ Iron Man muttered over the comms. He cut through the last few Doom Bots with his lasers as the rest of the team started to congregate at the epicenter of the battle. S.H.I.E.L.D. was already flooding the scene to try and find any people that weren’t able to be evacuated originally, which was doubtful that there was anyone left, because S.H.I.E.L.D. was nothing if not thorough. Steve if helping sift through rubble in tandem with the agents.

“Anyone know where Brucie ended up?” Tony asked, glancing around at his partially damaged suit. 

“I’ve got his location,” Clint replied, propelling down the side of his perch and making his way over to where he saw the Hulk shrink down into the doctor. 

“Mr. Brant, are you on your way?” Steve called over the comms, spotting his friend amid the wreckage. 

“The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents still aren’t letting civilians in yet, sir,” the young man responded over his own comm, given to his by Stark himself. 

“Fuck the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents,” Tony muttered, “They are below you in this hierarchy. I already decided it right now, you can tell them to go fuck themselves. JARVIS, make Todd a badge that gets him clearance to the field for next time.” 

“That’s not necessary, Mr. Stark,” Todd allowed himself a small smile despite himself, “I should be over in a couple minutes.”

“Sure, sure. Say what you want Todd-y, my boy,” Tony grinned, taking his time to get back to Bruce, since he didn’t want to risk flying in a damaged suit outside of battle. 

“Tony?” Clint asked, closing in on Bruce. The physicist was sitting up, looking around with horrified confusion. His mouth was slightly open, but he didn’t look prepared to say anything.

“What’s up, Merida?” 

“Get over here. He’s already awake.”

At the same time, Natasha passed into earshot of Bruce on her way over to Steve. Over the comm, she tells him, “They’re all gone, Steve. We should just head home.” 

“Did he hear that?” Todd asked, being let through by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. 

“I’m not sure, yet,” Clint answered, “I’m taking him to the Quinjet, meet us there, Bryant.” The archer turned off his comm. God, he was tired. He just wanted to go home and sleep for the next forty years, but he had a duty to his friend. So he knelt down in front of the doctor. “Hey there, bud.” The physicist’s hands were shaking. He looked like he couldn’t breathe. He snaked his arm around Bruce’s back and started to pull his friend to his feet. Bruce tried to go limp, clearly not wanting to leave his spot. 

“You know, this is a lot easier when you’re asleep, Doc,” Clint complained softly, forcing Bruce to walk out of the small crater the Hulk had ended up in. Bruce shook his head, but it wasn’t a reaction to whatever Clint had said. Bruce was in his own world, as he often was when he woke up before they could get him to the Quinjet. 

When Bruce turned back into himself after being the Hulk, his body always got back before his brain, living a period of time where Bruce’s usual genius level mental capacity could barely get higher than that of, well, the Hulk himself. So when Bruce’s head was all muddled, he tried to rely on patterns, although emotion sometimes bled over his logical tendencies, as best the team could tell. And waking up in the middle of a half-leveled street used to mean that the Hulk had just killed a thousand people. Bruce was still lagging too far behind to remember that he’d needed to let his alter ego out in the first place. 

All this combined, it made Bruce itching to run. Hence why Clint was having trouble keeping Bruce from trying to go hide in one of the now empty apartment buildings. He’d keep ghosting out of the archer’s grasp and start stumbling away until Clint caught up to him in a couple of seconds. 

“Hey there, Big Guy,” Tony murmured, finally out of his damaged suit. He nodded to Clint, who was just redirecting Cruce from his seventh escape attempt. “We’re going to head home now, got it?” Bruce doesn’t reply, doesn’t react past trying to worm his way out of the combined stronghold of Tony and Clint. 

“Get your ass over here, Todd,” Tony growled over the now open comm line. “I’m on my way, Mr. Stark.” The aid’s voice sounded strained, but as he turned off the mic on his comm, he continued to argue with the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent

The engineer hated the way he couldn’t get through to his friend right now. That the glassiness clouding his eyes wouldn’t go away for a while, and that his mind’s making up a thousand different stories about how he got here and none of them ended with ‘ _ And then we saved the day. _ ’

“Okay JARVIS, where are they?” Todd asked, ducking under the fence that S.H.I.E.L.D. had set up as a barricade. “Go straight for five blocks Mr. Bryant, and then turn left. You will be able to see them from there,” the AI supplied. And,  _ fuck _ , it was cool to be talking to a sentient robot. Todd had been required to sign a non-disclosure agreement so he could know about JARVIS, but the fresh college grad considered it to be completely worth the ten hour meeting with a lawyer. A lot of Todd’s life had changed when he applied for a biomedical engineering internship at Stark Industries. For whatever reason, the woman he interviewed with had spoken to the owner of the company about him and he’d been offered a job as the personal assistant to a nuclear physicist. And hadn’t that been a turn of events. 

Now he lived in an apartment complex just like this one, except in New York, not Boston, a few miles from the Avengers Tower, paid for by Tony Stark himself. 

He’s beside them in a couple of minutes, replacing Tony on Bruce’s right side. 

“I’m going to… check on Steve,” Tony muttered, swinging around and asking over the comms, “Hey guys, where you at?” before lumbering off. 

Todd started rubbing Bruce’s back, soothing him, telling him to stay calm, that they’re going home and that he's going to sleep and that he's safe right now. 

Clint listened, but didn’t comment. He didn’t understand what Bruce needed to hear, because he himself had always  _ been  _ himself after battles. He never turned into someone else, no matter how many masks he’d put on while undercover. He’d always still know who he was, even with Loki. 

But Bruce lost himself when the Other Guy came out. He didn’t get the luxury of being conscious in battle. 

“And, time for bed,” Todd muttered, as he and Clint set Bruce down on the cot that they’d added to the Quinjet after the team had realized how exhausting Hulking out was. 

Bruce curled up into himself, back to the rest of the Quinjet and almost immediately fell asleep. 

‘I need to go talk to Nat, Todd if you’re…”

“I have it covered, Mr. Barton,” Todd assured him, already going to unpack Bruce’s box. 

Everyone on the team has their own post-mission box, filled with a change of clothes and special foods, whatever helped that specific person cope after a battle. They were stored on the Quinjet at all times, reloaded by interns in the Tower that worked on or around the Avenger’s floors. 

All the boxes pretty full, but Bruce’s is the most extensive. Todd himself was in charge of making sure it was always ready to go, but everyone on the team tended to be super mother hen-y when it came to Bruce, even Natasha. 

Todd would show up after a mission and start pulling things out of Bruce’s box and discover that someone had added a pair of socks, or incense or stress balls, whatever they thought would help. Or they’ll pull Todd aside when he’s making one of his routine trips to the Tower and give him advice on what else he should put in it. 

Except, even though Todd knew that the things that  _ would  _ help his boss, and none of the things they brought up qualified, he felt too out of his league to say no to these gods. 

“And, upsy daisy, doctor,” Todd murmured, waking Bruce up before he got further than a light dose. He had pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, along with a couple water bottles and some granola bars that were specially made by Bruce and Tony for super metabolisms that spotlighted on the team. To complete his ensemble, if you could call it that, was a pair of wool socks and to headphones, one that played actual music, and another set that were noise canceling, depending if Bruce was going to go back to sleep or not. 

Bruce rolled over, already getting ready to attack Todd, relying on his base instincts. “Just me, Doc.”

Bruce squinted at him, still out of place and lagging mentally. 

“Time to get dressed, Dr. Banner,” the PA informed. He pulled the gray sweatshirt over his boss’s head, while Bruce tried to get away. “There we go, sir,” Todd praised. He slipped off Bruce’s tattered pants off and replaced them with a soft pair of pants. He helped Bruce sit up as he regained his faculties, then forced a water bottle into the physicist’s hands, coaching him into drinking it, until about half of it was gone. Todd took the bottle away for a moment, before giving him one of the granola bars and had him eat it. 

Once he got Bruce to eat two, he murmured, “Do you want more to eat?” 

Bruce shook his head. “Water?” Todd offered, showing him the bottle. Again Bruce shook his head, pulling at his sleeves as if in surprise that they were there. 

”You want to go back to sleep then?” he asked, offering the noise canceling headphones to Bruce. He shook his head, but took them anyway, starting to pull them over his ears. Todd stopped Bruce from completely putting them on with a soft touch on his wrist. Bruce looked at him, but his eyes couldn’t completely focus on Todd’s face. “Do you have a headache Dr. Banner?”

“... shoul’ call m’ Bruce,” the hero slurred, looking away. But he still nodded dutifully to his assistant’s question. “Sure thing, Doc,” Todd smirked, letting Bruce finish putting on the headphones. He immediately relaxed at the newfound silence. He waited for Bruce to finish settling back down on the cot, before walking over to a little sink that was tucked away in small bathroom. 

On his way over, he put away the second set of headphones in the doctor’s plastic box and throwing away the wrappers and Bruce’s old pants. 

He wet down a washcloth and takes it back over to Bruce. Steve and Tony had entered while he’d been in the bathroom. He smiled courteously to Steve, who was stripping out of his suit, leaving himself in a pair of tight-fitting shorts. Todd tried to hide how flustered he was, because that was  _ Captain America  _ standing half naked in the middle of his path. 

Steve smiled back warmly, sincerely, grabbing a towel from where he had set it down on his usual seat and wiping off the sweat all over himself and pulling on a new, clean shirt. 

Tony hopped down from the front of the Quinjet and clapped Todd on the shoulder before he let Todd continue on his path to Bruce. 

“I’m going to go call Pep,” Tony announced, jumping out of the jet. 

Todd laid the wet cloth over Bruce’s eyes who reached up to it and tried to grab it off, but Todd held it down until Bruce figured out what it was. Todd removed his boss’s fingers, sitting down on the chair that was bolted to the wall next to Bruce’s head. 

A couple minutes later, Tony came back in, looking more relaxed, but he frowned when he saw Bruce still curled up into himself, breathing through his mouth.

“Headache,” Todd explained, looking up at his employer. Tony nodded silently and kept walking over to the cockpit. 

It was weird for Todd. He had grown up watching the news of the billionaire playboy Tony Stark, who never shut up, who was always caught up in scandals. But this man, post Afghanistan, post aliens, post Mandarin, was much more subdued. Sure, he’d seen Stark,  _ Tony, _ he reminded himself, get random spurts of energy when he’d tagged along pre-battle or stopped by the Tower, but nothing that he would’ve expected. 

It was pretty quiet in the jet for a while. Steve left to go drag Clint and Natasha away from their S.H.I.E.L.D. friends, so they could get back to New York.  Everyone had congregated in the Quinjet again about ten minutes later, and Tony informed them, “Wheels up in five.” 

“Hey, Dr. Banner,” Todd said, squeezing his hand to warn him before pulling the washcloth off of his boss’s face. “Time to wake up.”

Bruce was clearly more there this time. He was tired, but he was much more present. He kept the headphones firmly over his ears, but quickly figured out that they were about to take off. He lumbered over to a chair and strapped himself in, waving in the general direction of Steve, Nat and Clint as he went. 

“Everyone good?” Tony calls over his shoulder. There are muttered yeses, and he took off.  

A few minutes later, they were at cruising altitude and Bruce looked at Todd and motioned to the cot. He nodded and went over to Bruce’s box to pull out a blanket for the doctor. 

“Thanks,” Bruce smiled sleepily, pulling the blanket over his shoulders. 

“Anytime, boss. We’ll be home in about half an hour. I’ll wake you up when we get there," Todd promised him, even though the scientist was already asleep.


End file.
